The asset accounting systems of most business organizations today are centralized. Because of this centralization, all groups or divisions within a business organization have access to these accounting records. For example, when an asset such as a personal computer is accounted for in an asset management system, all the different groups or divisions of the business organization, such as purchasing, receiving, shipping, production, and accounting, have access to that centralized asset information. Furthermore, as a result of this centralization, when a good or material comes into the system and is accounted for according to the relevant accounting practices, the group of the business organization that is responsible for acquiring that good or service, for example the purchasing department, must account for that good or service according to the accepted rules of accounting. This may cause problems however since the purchasing department generally does not have the expertise on the pertinent accounting rules, and may not properly designate for accounting purposes many of the goods and materials coming into the business. This predicament is not easily solvable by requiring the accounting department to account for the good or material as it enters the business organization because it is not the accounting department that first receives this good or material. Additionally, with the advent of globalization and multi-national companies, the functions of a business organization may be distributed throughout the world and many different countries, and the accounting functions of a business organization may be far removed from the operations of the organization. Such globalization and deployment has put a strain on the typical centralalized asset management system.